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BUILDING THE

EXECUTIVE TALENT PIPELINE

BY ANITA RIOS

INTRODUCTION MnSCU’s SUCCESSION PLANNING APPROACH
Eighty-four percent of community college presidents expected Succession planning, simply defned, is the process of
to retire by 2016! Fify percent turnover predicted among senior developing talent to meet the needs of an organization now and
leaders in the next 5-10 years! Six thousand jobs in higher in the future. However, succession planning has not typically
education needed to be flled annually through 2020! been embraced in higher education, where there is a strong
(Betts, Urias, Chavez, & Betts, 2009). Tese were the national value in conducting open and competitive national searches
statistics I shared with senior leaders and board members for top leadership positions to both attract and hire the best
within the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) talent. Te traditional private sector practice of identifying a
in 2010. For a system of 24 state community and technical list of possible internal successors for leadership roles, and then
colleges and seven state universities, each led by a president, choosing from that list, would never meet our requirements for
those were dire predictions. conducting fair searches.
At that time, the workforce data for MnSCU told a similar Understanding the culture of higher education, and the value
story. In 2010, 84% of our college and university presidents placed on open and fair practices, my talent management
were 56 years old or older, with many approaching colleagues and I worked diligently to clearly defne and
retirement. In a 2010 survey of MnSCU institutional leaders communicate our succession planning approach as “identifying
(MnSCU Human Resources, 2010), 61% indicated that it was and accelerating the development of pools of people who can
already challenging to fnd qualifed applicants for college competitively apply for open leadership positions.”
and university presidential positions due to the national In addition, prior to 2010, I worked with a broad-based
competition for talent. succession planning committee to develop a succession
It was a perfect storm: massive impending retirements and planning framework that would incorporate MnSCU’s values
turnover, with predictions of even greater competition for and work for the MnSCU system. Te framework was an
recruiting from a limited pool of talent. I knew we needed adaptation of William Rothwell’s essential components of
to do something diferent. We needed to build our pipeline a succession planning program (Rothwell, 2010). MnSCU’s
of executive talent within the Minnesota State Colleges and succession planning framework depicted in Chart 1 involves
Universities, and fast! So afer broad consultation with our seven steps and provides a common roadmap for any leader
senior leaders, including the chancellor and our college and within our system who wants to implement succession
university presidents, and with strong backing from the Board planning eforts for their college, university, or discipline.
of Trustees, I was charged by the Vice Chancellor of Human Our succession planning committee also worked to create a
Resources to lead a presidential succession planning efort succession planning toolkit (MnSCU Human Resources, n.d.)
in 2011 that has been, in a word…amazing. Amazing in its which supplements the framework. It provides discussion
executive support and involvement. Amazing in the quality guides, templates, and resources for each of the seven steps.
and motivation of the participants in the program. And, most
importantly, amazing in results. MnSCU’s need for conducting a presidential succession
In this article, I will share how we approached succession planning efort gave us the perfect opportunity to pilot test the
succession planning framework and to develop many of the
planning and customized it to the higher education tools and templates for the toolkit. A description of each of the
environment using a helpful framework adapted from seven steps and how we applied them follows.
respected succession planning expert, William Rothwell. I will
also cover how we worked to accelerate the development of high STEP 1: IDENTIFY PURPOSE/GOALS/OBJECTIVES
performing, high potential leaders who were identifed for the State why the program is needed. Set measurable objectives to
succession efort. And most important, I will relay the results ensure that the program is designed to achieve desired results.
to date from our fve-year focus on presidential succession and
what we have learned along the way. In a nutshell, the purpose of MnSCU’s presidential

26 LEADERSHIP Vol. 22.1 Spring/Summer 2016

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